Trump's "Victory" Statement Deserves To Be Ridiculed

The election was not decided on November 4th. There were still millions of votes to be counted, and the results may not be known for another day or more.

Joe Biden came out late as votes were still being counted, and said he felt good about how it was going. It was a reasonable statement by a reasonable man. 

Donald Trump was different. He declared himself the winner, and called any votes not yet counted to be fraudulent. It was another example of him trying to bully and lie his way into getting what he wants -- and it deserves all the ridicule that can be heaped on it.

Alexandra Petri wrote a brilliant piece of satire in The Washington Post about Trump's claim. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, she announced that she has won the 2024 Olympics (all of it)! She wrote:

Hello, everyone! As long as we are announcing we’ve won things we haven’t won, I would like to share now that I have won the entire 2024 Olympics. I was surprised, too, given that I do not do any sports, and the Olympics have not concluded — or even started — yet, but, well, there it is. You had better cover my announcement, because I think it is big news for one person to win the entire Olympics of 2024, the Summer Olympics, the better of the two Olympics!

It’s especially impressive when you consider that I am not an athlete! I used to run, but only when late for a train, and I don’t do that anymore. And yet it did not matter: I won the 2024 Olympics! Incredible! I won the pole vault and I won the gymnastics (floor and balance beam) and I also won all the events that Katie Ledecky usually wins, which should be impossible, but I guess it was not, because I must have believed in myself. A pretty inspiring story, I think, and big news. I hope America will hasten to get behind me and acknowledge my victory with various parades and jet flyovers and things of that nature.

Please stop saying I haven’t won the 2024 Olympics and we won’t know who won the 2024 Olympics until 2024, at the very earliest. This partisan sniping tears America apart! We all know that the realest, most important part of the Olympics has already happened: the part where it was announced and I decided I would like to have won it.

All the indications are pretty clear, now, before the races have concluded or even begun, that I am the clear winner in all the Olympic events. My shot-put performance was especially impressive! This overwhelming show of strength by me speaks for itself. Please don’t be distracted by the calls of the so-called athletes to “wait for the Olympics to begin, transpire and conclude before we declare a winner.” That would be divisive, the last thing we need right now, when we should all be rallying around me, the clear winner of events which, were they to have been won by someone else, would be illegitimate and thievish.

My gymnastics victory was especially impressive. And let me say now: If my gold medal for floor events is stolen from me and given to Simone Biles, simply because in four years’ time she showed up and competed in the actual event, performed a better routine and received a higher score, that will be stealing. Stealing is wrong. What I am doing is not stealing; I just won and am saying so. Two totally different things!

My victory in the 2024 Olympics was so overwhelming that I can also announce, right now, that I received a Nobel Peace Prize, for being so humble about it. Wow! And a — oh my gosh, the Pritzker Prize, for architecture? You shouldn’t have! Huge story right here, my winning this Nobel Peace Prize that I definitely won, and also this entire Olympics, single-handedly, and this Pritzker, and — an EGOT? This is incredible. If I were the sort of person who could get tired of winning … but fortunately, I’m not.

All I had to do was believe in myself, it turned out! Congratulations to me, the clear victor, and thank you for giving me the media coverage I so lavishly deserved for my unparalleled achievement, which definitely is real and most certainly happened. Bring me my gold!